NCAA and Video Games: Beginning of the End?

[Phall]

An interesting blip on the radar today: the NCAA announced that it would not renew its licensing arrangement with EA Sports, a premier video game studio behind the popular college football franchise. There has been a looming class action suit, spearheaded by former UCLA and NBA basketball player Ed O'Bannon, claiming that the NCAA was unfairly profiting by receiving money for the issuance of team and player likenesses. The "plaintiffs" are, in theory, every college player ever, and the grievance is that they are definably amateur. The press release reads as follows:

The NCAA has made the decision not to enter a new contract for the license of its name and logo for the EA Sports NCAA Football video game. The current contract expires in June 2014, but our timing is based on the need to provide EA notice for future planning. As a result, the NCAA Football 2014 video game will be the last to include the NCAA’s name and logo. We are confident in our legal position regarding the use of our trademarks in video games. But given the current business climate and costs of litigation, we determined participating in this game is not in the best interests of the NCAA.


The NCAA has never licensed the use of current student-athlete names, images or likenesses to EA. The NCAA has no involvement in licenses between EA and former student-athletes. Member colleges and universities license their own trademarks and other intellectual property for the video game. They will have to independently decide whether to continue those business arrangements in the future.

A detailed (if a bit slanted) breakdown can be found here. The proposed plan for EA Sports going forward is to use the Collegiate Licensing Company to acquire rights to most of the same template. There might be the odd re-wording (South Bend instead of Notre Dame, for example), but the game will be customizable to the extent that a few diligent nerd volunteers can upload an unofficial "official" version to available servers for mass download.

There is a multitude of concerns that come with this elaborate work-around, but the takeaway is clear: the NCAA is the bad guy, and it is limiting its liability going forward (but retaining retroactive liability for accrued "damages"). I see no reason why this new CLC at the head of the table will not fall victim to the same litigation, or why particularly popular sports programs won't negotiate individually for their likenesses, but time will tell.

I've had a suspicion for awhile now that the college sports house of cards will come tumbling down soon. There are competing camps of liberals: the blacks, who should be paid for their revenue-generating sports (because "slavery"), and the women, who should receive the same number of scholarships as men (because "equal rights"). Of course, most athletic departments operate at a modest profit, although not all do. If the profits are re-appropriated to black football players rather than women soccer players, balancing the check book becomes much more difficult.

Currently, a couple of issues being tabled are four-year guaranteed scholarships and extra 'cost-of-living' stipends, primarily for football players but with larger implications down the road. The first athlete to get his guaranteed scholarship revoked over questionable behavior will kick-start another class action litigation. The extra stipends will price the mid- and lower-tier programs out of the market. There will be new money going out, but no new money coming in. How could any mid-major school afford this?

I predict that a rash of smaller schools will close their doors to scholarship sports once these 'progressive' changes take place, and slowly but surely the trickle will continue up until no more than half the football teams remain. Ironically, football "traditionalists" will complain endlessly and pointlessly, despite never standing for "traditions" that kept student-athletes localized, matching in academic pedigree, or at the very least able to read cursive and speak English. This little tidbit about video game licensing seems like the proverbial canary in the coal mine.

 

[jaxvid]

An interesting blip on the radar today: the NCAA announced that it would not renew its licensing arrangement with EA Sports, a premier video game studio behind the popular college football franchise. There has been a looming class action suit, spearheaded by former UCLA and NBA basketball player Ed O'Bannon, claiming that the NCAA was unfairly profiting by receiving money for the issuance of team and player likenesses. The "plaintiffs" are, in theory, every college player ever, and the grievance is that they are definably amateur. The press release reads as follows:



A detailed (if a bit slanted) breakdown can be found here. The proposed plan for EA Sports going forward is to use the Collegiate Licensing Company to acquire rights to most of the same template. There might be the odd re-wording (South Bend instead of Notre Dame, for example), but the game will be customizable to the extent that a few diligent nerd volunteers can upload an unofficial "official" version to available servers for mass download.

There is a multitude of concerns that come with this elaborate work-around, but the takeaway is clear: the NCAA is the bad guy, and it is limiting its liability going forward (but retaining retroactive liability for accrued "damages"). I see no reason why this new CLC at the head of the table will not fall victim to the same litigation, or why particularly popular sports programs won't negotiate individually for their likenesses, but time will tell.

I've had a suspicion for awhile now that the college sports house of cards will come tumbling down soon. There are competing camps of liberals: the blacks, who should be paid for their revenue-generating sports (because "slavery"), and the women, who should receive the same number of scholarships as men (because "equal rights"). Of course, most athletic departments operate at a modest profit, although not all do. If the profits are re-appropriated to black football players rather than women soccer players, balancing the check book becomes much more difficult.

Currently, a couple of issues being tabled are four-year guaranteed scholarships and extra 'cost-of-living' stipends, primarily for football players but with larger implications down the road. The first athlete to get his guaranteed scholarship revoked over questionable behavior will kick-start another class action litigation. The extra stipends will price the mid- and lower-tier programs out of the market. There will be new money going out, but no new money coming in. How could any mid-major school afford this?

I predict that a rash of smaller schools will close their doors to scholarship sports once these 'progressive' changes take place, and slowly but surely the trickle will continue up until no more than half the football teams remain. Ironically, football "traditionalists" will complain endlessly and pointlessly, despite never standing for "traditions" that kept student-athletes localized, matching in academic pedigree, or at the very least able to read cursive and speak English. This little tidbit about video game licensing seems like the proverbial canary in the coal mine.

I would agree that this type of financial squabbling has the possible effect of ruining college sport even more then it already is. I think that the push to pay black players (and that is really what it is) will be more potentially damaging but this hit to revenue streams could also pile on.

However my faith in any corrective actions occurring to any part of the multi-cultural feeder system is pretty low so instead of mid-majors ending their football programs I think it is more likely that the FedGov will instead start subsidizing the whole industry with some of Uncle Ben's magic paper money. After all it's a Civil Right to be able to play college football. That and the rest of the college will be conducted in open air shacks using chisels and stone tablets all so that Tyrelle and Davon can continue to spend 2 or 3 years terrorizing white coeds.